Is security really worth jeopardizing our civil liberties?

Published 3:47 pm, Tuesday, June 11, 2013

As a candidate for president in 2008, Barack Obama set a high bar for his administration, declaring that it would be "the most open and transparent in history."

But Obama for years has been making decisions behind closed doors about the privacy of American citizens' telephone records and other data available through technology. Last week, he said he would welcome a public debate on the balance between privacy and security — and so do we.

The precise details of methods security agencies use to identify threats have to remain classified to work — and they do appear to have worked. Until Boston, there has been no major terrorist attack. But to debate that delicate balance, Americans need a better understanding of the extent government is accessing data.

The president defends his programs, denying that intelligence agencies are listening to phone calls or probing citizens' conduct through data mining.

He stresses that all three branches of government oversee these programs; Congress has been briefed all along and the courts must approve specifics.

But some dispute the claim that Congress was briefed, and two senators have warned that Americans were out of the loop.

Civil rights organizations for years have decried the lack of accountability for U.S. intelligence agencies that have been prone to excess. It's reassuring to hear the president say that nobody's listening to phone calls without a warrant, but most Americans didn't realize that agencies were accessing their phone records.

We had more faith in Obama than in Congress or the courts to do the right thing, based on his 2008 campaign. Americans need to better understand what's happened since to determine if the balance of safety and civil liberties has been skewed.